Hard Carried by My Sword-Chapter 83

Chapter 83
At the crackling sound of the campfire, Leon’s mind rose from its deep sleep. His sealed senses were returning one by one.
It started with the hearing. The rustle of leaves, the crackle of burning wood, the distant cries of monsters somewhere in the forest.
When his hearing finally returned, light flickered into his eyes. As it seeped through his eyelids, Leon’s awareness surfaced completely. He blinked and looked around.
Karen, sitting right beside him, greeted him as he came to.
“Ah, you’re awake?”
Her clothes were torn and ragged in places—no doubt from that fierce fight with the drake. At least she didn’t seem badly hurt.
“Hey, Karen...”
Leon tried to push himself up as he called her name, but he felt the strength drain from his arm braced on the ground. His body still hadn’t fully recovered.
Karen quickly supported his shoulder and soothed him.
“Don’t push it. Looks like we’ll both be safe for a while. Right, you two?”
Her playful tone made the giants chuckle heartily.
“
Ha
! Of course. A Titan warrior never goes back on his word. That’s one of our virtues.”
“We’ll keep you both from spilling a single drop of blood until we reach the village. Until then, rest up.”
Only then did Leon, newly awake, see the two giants sitting across from them. The flickering fire cast their shadows long across the ground. Their huge frames seemed even larger in that wavering glow.
Up close, they feel even bigger. Must be close to four meters.
A Titan’s body was not so different from an ogre’s. Born with enough brute strength to rule their domain, they were monsters with the nickname of “King of the Mountains” that could shatter boulders with a punch or snap giant trees with a single kick, even without any technique.
Muscles weren’t all they had. Their tough hide, dense muscle, and solid bones made their defenses so strong that even an Aura Weapon could barely pierce deep. That alone would be more than enough to call them unfair, but there was one more thing.
Unlike ogres, Titans train. They build their bodies and master martial skills. I guess the gap between an ogre and a Titan is like that of a farmer and a knight. The real difference in fighting power must be tenfold, at least.
Without meaning to, Leon’s eyes held a trace of caution. Even knowing they bore him no hostility, the sheer weight of that strength made him tense. It was no different than standing beside a tame beast and still flinching at its presence.
Just sitting there, their power pressed down on his skin.
“A warrior, I see.”
“Good eyes.”
Thankfully, the giants took no offense at his wary look. To them, his vigilance was respect for their strength.
“Young warrior, I’d like to know your name.”
The giant with the spear spoke first. To Titan warriors, social rank and titles meant nothing and were worth nothing. Only strength earned respect, and Leon and Karen had proven theirs by fighting alongside them to drive off the drake.
“It’s Leon,” Leon answered.
The two giants repeated his name a few times, then each struck their chest with a fist and answered in turn.
“I am Urga. I use a spear, as you can see.”
“My name is Zulu, wielder of the axe.”
Friendship with Titans began with exchanging names. Leon realized, a beat late, that this small gesture was a sign that he had won their favor. Thanks to the drake, their first meeting was going quite well.
“
Ah
.” Leon voiced the question on his mind, “What happened to the drake? I remember driving my attack through its eye, but that’s all.”
“It fled. Didn’t even look back,” Urga, the spear bearer, answered and shrugged his huge shoulders. “It moved so fast, we could barely see its tail. They say a drake’s flight is faster than most birds—it was true enough.”
Zulu, the axe wielder, praised him with a grin.
“Still, you did well. A drake’s regeneration isn’t strong enough to grow back a lost eye. It’ll lie low for a while, no doubt.”
Killing it outright would have been best, but taking an eye was still a great feat. Losing an eye meant losing depth perception. Not even a drake, with all its sharpened senses, could escape that simple truth. Until it adapted, it wouldn’t dare go against a strong foe again.
“How are you doing? You didn’t get caught in that thing’s Breath, did you?” Urga asked, and Leon closed his eyes for a moment to take stock of himself.
Looks like I avoided major injuries. Aside from muscle exhaustion, the real problem is using up all my Aura. The power stored in the Holy Sword is all used up too—I’ll just have to wait for it to come back naturally.
He didn’t even have enough Aura left to draw in mana from the surroundings. The fight with the drake had pushed him right to the edge without leaving even a scrap of strength unused.
“I’m fine. I’ll be fully recovered in a few days.”
Even so, Leon gave an optimistic answer. The mana here was so dense that natural recovery would be several times faster than normal.
At this rate, he’d be back to normal in three or four days. Anywhere else, it would have taken at least two weeks.
“Good. A skill like yours is wasted on just taking an eye. One day, you’ll finish the job.”
“
Ha
! Damn right.”
The giants laughed loudly, as if spurring him on.
Even in the deep zone of the Titan Mountains, prey like that drake was rare. The fact that a small, fragile human had driven it off was something to be excited about.
While the giants seemed gleeful, Leon looked in the direction the drake had fled, his expression wary.
They say dragon-type monsters are cunning and relentless. They never forget a grudge.
That now one-eyed drake would be no exception. Near or far, the day they fought again would come.
Feeling that near-certainty, Leon’s hand brushed the hilt of the Holy Sword at his waist.
“
Hm
, but why did you two come to these mountains?” Zulu asked.
At the offhand question, Leon and Karen exchanged glances. There was no reason to lie, not now. If anything, thanks to the good first impression, they might even ask these giants for help.
“We came to ask something of the Giant King.”
When Leon spoke plainly of their purpose, Urga and Zulu’s eyes widened. Humans from beyond the mountains, seeking an audience with the Giant King? That hadn’t happened in decades—maybe even a century.
Urga didn’t bother hiding his surprise and said, “You have business with him,
eh
? Can’t remember how many years it’s been. You’re not some envoy sent by the Empire, are you?”
Leon let out a faint laugh and shot back, “Do we look like those kinds of people to you?”
“As if! All I see is a warrior who gouged out a drake’s eye face to face!”
“You keep praising me like that—but I don’t have anything to give you.”
“What?
Kuhahaha!
”
The giants and Leon’s party kept talking like that for quite a while. Urga and Zulu welcomed the rare thrill of outsiders, and Leon’s group was eager to hear anything they could about the deep zone, so the four of them talked without pause.
After an hour of stories, all the trivial chatter had dried up, leaving only topics they couldn’t help but bring up. One of those was the Titans’ use of Aura.
“I never imagined Titan warriors could use Aura,” Leon muttered, and he wasn’t joking. Seeing them wield Aura had left him genuinely alarmed.
If the Titans’ Aura usage hadn’t been so rudimentary, if they’d wielded it at Leon or Karen’s level, Urga and Zulu alone could have butchered that drake as if it were some feeble low-tier monster.
The fact that they could wield Aura was that shocking.
“
Ha
, no need to flatter us that much,” Urga said, a wry smile tugging at his lips. “As you saw for yourself, Titans
can
learn Aura—but it takes incredible effort and time to hone it. I’ve trained for thirty years, just to reach this level.”
“Thirty years...!” Leon and Karen both blurted it out in disbelief.
To be blunt, Urga’s Aura handling was at a beginner level. Circulating Aura inside the body to strengthen it slightly was a level you’d expect from a mid- or low-ranked knight. A talented person could reach that in three years or less.
—Why are you so surprised? It’s only natural.
El Cid, who’d been quiet for a while, finally spoke.
—A Titan’s body is huge. Not just height—its volume and density are several times greater than a human’s. So the amount of Aura they can contain is enormous.
Isn’t that a good thing...?
—Only if you can fill up that insanely oversized vessel.
El Cid’s words hit the mark. Titans were, just as he said, the peak of physical lifeforms—but that came with the extreme downside of being painfully slow to mature.
To master Aura, one had to fill and drain that vessel over and over, to grasp the principles of wielding power. For Titans, that vessel was so big that filling it took forever, and handling a small amount of Aura skillfully was far more difficult for them.
—Still, their raw physical power is so insane that even with just beginner-level Aura, they can beat an A-rank warrior to death without breaking a sweat.
By rights, it was a power they shouldn’t have needed. Which is why learning Aura wasn’t easy for them, and advancing it was even harder.
Even these giants, who’d spent decades fighting in the depths, hadn’t surpassed the level of a mid-ranked knight. Because of such reasons, Titans who could use Aura Weapon or Aura attribute manipulation were so rare you could count them on one hand.
“You’d have to be at least a Chief Warrior to cover your weapon in that power.”
If they could do that, they would’ve smashed that drake’s skull open themselves, they said with a regretful laugh. And the scary thing was, they were right.
The attack power of Aura Weapon was incomparable to the levels below it, and it naturally defined the threshold of a worthy fighter. If a Titan’s siege-engine strength were combined with Aura Weapon, even a drake’s hide would tear like paper.
Then what if there’s a Titan who’s surpassed that, into the next realm...?
At minimum, they’d be at Master level—maybe even beyond. This thought made Leon shiver to imagine just how strong the Giant King who ruled over them must be.
He recalled all the rumors he’d heard, that he once swatted down a dragon flying over the mountains. That he crushed the skull of a demon from the Demon Realm with his bare hands. Or that he caused a landslide with a single punch.
He’d always dismissed those stories as absurd nonsense.
Maybe those stories were...
Now, he had a feeling those rumors might actually be true.